Saturday, May 16, 2009

Idjku: Russia Has Lost Its Mind So I Be Strokin'

There are those songs in the world...that when you hear them...they just raise your spirits...they get your feet to tappin' and put a smile on your face.

This morning, as I thumbed through the news...and heard about the 40-80 queer activists in Russia arrested and treated brutally for daring to put on a pride march...I had to stop...take a moment...put in my earbuds...and find some musical joy. Right now, as I muse on the complacency that so many queer folks in the U.S. feel...I am finding joy in Clarence Carter's Strokin'..and A Brand New Day from The Wiz. At the heart of Clarence Carter's song is a celebration of sex and sexuality for the joy of sex and sexuality...in a Brand New Day...Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, Nipsey Russell and Ted Ross are celebrating triumph over Evilene...the Wicked Witch of West Harlem...and the joy that freedom promises.

The beaten and jailed activists in Moscow took to the streets last night against the Wicked Witch of the Kremlin for the right to love (and fuck) freely.

In the United States, in most (though not all) places, we take our right to freely assemble for granted. We take to the streets for Pride festivals as a matter of course. We know that if our festivals and demonstrations are denied, we have legal recourse that we can pursue. The road we walk isn't always easy but, in every major U.S. city, Pride parades and Pride festivals are generally found listed on city websites and generally raise few institutional eyebrows...though there are almost always pockets of religious fundamentalists on a couple of corners waving flags.

Nowhere in the United States in the last two decades have we had to worry about violent reactions from state authorities to our queer pride marches and rallies (the same can not be said for other more radical demonstrations addressing issues of racial and economic justice...America is better than some places but it also has a long ass way to go).

Each year, I endure the diatribes by people like Andrew Sullivan...that rail against the drag queens and leather daddies...the tit slinging dykes on bikes and the fetish queens as they march proudly down Mainstreet U.S.A putting sex in liberation and liberation in sex right out in public view and swirling all up in a gender stew. My blood boils when the regressivists and assimilationists get indignant and demand that we put our celebration and joy back in the closet.

(His Eye is on the Sparrow just came on....”why should I feel discouraged...” Truthfully...I don't).

It is in times like these, when I am reminded of how small our little blue planet really is..that I remember why...almost every year since 1995 I have marched in a queer pride parade no matter where I happened to find myself. While Minneapolis may be a welcoming place, and it might be chic to be a chick with a dick in NYC...there are plenty of places on this planet...where it is not.

When we fight for our own liberation and make ourselves visible...we are not just showing up for ourselves or our community...we are showing up for those that we have no idea are watching. We show up for those that are watching from behind the window shades or behind the old Iron Curtain. We are marching on a global stage to proclaim to a global family that no matter where you are...you have a right to be who you were born to be...without out apology and without violent repression from your government.

We take up arms, internationally, against the Word Trade Organization and unchecked globalization. We cry out against Buddhist monks being jailed and beaten in Tibet. We screamed loudly and with one voice against apartheid in South Africa, and when Slobodan Milosevic decide genocide was an answer....we posed a new question and went to the aid of Kosovo. It is about damn time that we show the same solidarity with those struggling for the right to love and fuck whosoever they choose without regard to gender or sexual identity whether or not they are on the next block or on the next continent.

This week has seen signing of a bill by the President of Uruguay to allow queers to serve in that nation's military. The NY State Assembly passed a queer marriage bill. And Russia struck down with a great fury on rights demonstrators. These things are part of one grand justice tapestry. When the weave is beautiful, but one part of the tapestry snags, the beauty of the whole is reduced. My heart goes out the Russian queer community. But, as Russia turns more and more to partnership with the European Union, it is incumbent on the EU to hold Russia to the same standards it holds its member states...namely requiring the elimination of state sanctioned oppression of queer and genderqueer folks.

Europe can not enjoy the immense resources of Russia while ignoring the human rights abuses of the Russian government and maintain any standing as a human rights crusader in other areas of the world. When economic interests trump human interests the gates of Hell open wider and the Devil rolls out the red carpet to all those involved and Heaven shudders on its foundations.

My Feet Only Walk Forward

A Bit Of Me in Ones and Zeroes

Named February 2011's Bad-Ass Feminist of the Month by NotYourAverageFeminist.com, BLC is also a poet, playwright, journalist,amateur chef and life commentator doing his bit to put his foot in the asses of the regressive masses, while putting filling and nutritious food on plates of folks that ain't got much and deserve better. And, thank you to MyLatinVoice.Com which named me the #2 Queer Latin@ Blogger on the web for my blog My Feet Only Walk Forward: www.myfeetonlywalkforward.blogspot.com

Photo Credits and Copyright

All written material found on this blog whether blog entries, poetry, or insane rantings are wholly owned and copyrighted by William Brandon Lacy unless otherwise acknowledged in the body of the text. Please feel free to repost my work as long as you are willing to credit the author (unless of course you are a for profit entity...then you best to be PAYING the author before you use my writing...don't make me get you).

As for the photos and artwork...all artwork is credit to the artist...which right now is just David Berube. Most of the photos on this site are taken by me or by David Berube...though some are pulled directly from the web. The background photo on this blog was taken by yk hong (love you!). The logo at the top of the page was designed by Catherine Womack. If you own an image that you find on this site and are unwilling to let me use it...please let me know, and I will take it down post haste.